Random Most Career-Ruining Performances (12 items)

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  (#2) Ashlee Simpson

  • Band/Musician

  Ashlee Simpson, sister of pop star Jessica Simpson, had begun to get her own music career off the ground when she landed a prized spot as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live in 2004. "Pieces Of Me," the first song of the buzzed-about performance, went well enough. But when Simpson took the stage for her second song, the backing track for the first song, "Pieces Of Me," began to play instead.

  Stunned, Simpson performed a brief jig before running off stage. The show went to commercial a minute later. 

  "I’ll hold my head high and say I think it was silly of me to do it, silly of me to blame the band, I was just so f*cking embarrassed," she later said in a statement, blaming the incident on acid reflux and her voice being shot.

  Simpson's subsequent single release did poorly, as did the album that followed. Her musical career never got back on track. 
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  (#3) Lindsay Lohan

  • Actor

  In 2004, actress Lindsay Lohan began her musical career with a scandal: lip-syncing on national television. Lohan was performing two songs from her album when she was caught on camera, apparently forgetting to move her mouth along with the vocals that were playing.

  Reps for both Lohan's record label and Good Morning America denied that she lip-synced. Label rep Kim Jakwerth said in a statement:

  She did not lip-sync. Lindsay sang 100 percent live. Her band played 100 percent live. The background singers were 100 percent live. Yes, on the first song there were background tracks, which were not on the second song.

  The scandal was the beginning of the end for Lohan's musical endeavors, as she never quite recovered enough to keep pursuing a singing career. 
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  (#4) Michelle Shocked

  • Band/Musician

  Folk singer Michelle Shocked derailed her career in 2013 after ranting about gay marriage on stage in San Francisco, CA. The singer, whose own sexuality has been fairly ambiguous over the years, said, "When they stop Prop 8 and force priests at gunpoint to marry [homosexual people], it will be the downfall of civilization, and Jesus will come back."

  Backlash immediately ensued, and Shocked went on the Piers Morgan show to set the record straight, but was unable to undo the damage that had been done. She faded into obscurity soon after. 
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  (#9) Robin Thicke

  • Band/Musician

  Robin Thicke's quest to reconcile with his wife took center stage during an awkward performance at the the BET Awards in 2014. The singer's attempts to win back his wife, actress Paula Patton, was already documented on recordings and in live performances. However, his BET performance, in which he opened his song by telling Patton that he loved and missed her, was a bizarre turn.

  Thicke and Patton were married for nine years before cheating rumors prompted Patton to move on from the "Blurred Lines" singer. Following the BET performance, Thicke's career never quite got back on the right track.

  He retreated from the spotlight for some time before returning with a single that did reasonably well, but he hasn't been heard from in a major way musically since. His last album was, fittingly enough, 2014's Paula. 
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  (#5) Guns N' Roses

  • Band/Musician

  Guns N' Roses' MTV VMA Awards performance in 2002 was meant to be something of a comeback for the group, with Axl Rose fronting a new lineup and hoping to reclaim the band's reputation after nearly a decade of dormancy.

  That wasn't mean to be, however, thanks to Rose's particularly bad vocal performance and downright bizarre appearance. The legendary hard rock frontman sported braids in his hair and ran across the stage almost unable to breathe properly enough to sing well.

  It was a strange performance that set the tone for the band's Chinese Democracy, which was almost as spectacular a failure as the VMA performance. It was such a disappointment that a fan created a version of the broadcast with another performance synced over the video just to see what could have been. 
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  (#8) Women

  • Band/Musician

  Indie band Women had perhaps one of the most intense on-stage breakups of all time. While performing in Victoria, British Columbia, in 2011, the band - who had gained serious steam following two critically acclaimed albums - erupted into an intense fight.

  "Pat started throwing punches at his brother [Matthew Flegel] during their set-up and soundcheck. Full on 'break it up' brawl between the brothers," Aidan Knight, who attended the show, said. "Chris announced on-stage that it would be their 'last show as a band' and they were planning to play without Pat. Not sure how that would've worked."

  The band canceled their tour following the brawl, then announced a hiatus. Unfortunately, they were never able to mend their relationship and guitarist Christopher Reimer passed in 2012. 

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